This is a principle we often share when teaching on marriage....
The idea of nurturing and cherishing your marriage relationship is not a new one, but we wondered what kind of ideas our African friends would come up with. After breaking them into small groups of men and women, we asked them to discuss this idea of nurturing their marriages and to come up with some suggestions. The men's group came up with 22 suggestions!! The women's group came up with 10 (but lots of brackets).
We stood back and marveled at some of their suggestions. Wow!!!
These very polite and conservative people with strict social norms and boundaries had some great ideas.
Some examples:
undress your wife
take a bath with your wife
bathe your wife
dress your wife
feed your wife
massage your wife with oil
help your wife with her duties
hold her hand
sit with her
talk with her
listen to her
From the women:
go and bring the water so you can prepare a bath for your husband (this would include going to the river, town tap or well and filling a large container and then carrying it on your head back to the home)
prepare his favourite food (this would include starting a fire and cooking on that which would take considerable time)
feed him
sit with him and talk with him
clean the house for him - do this with love, not duty...
and the lists go on.
We knew our students had gotten the idea when they so freely shared these ideas and later for homework we asked them to incorporate one of these actions into their evening......
The idea of nurturing and cherishing your marriage relationship is not a new one, but we wondered what kind of ideas our African friends would come up with. After breaking them into small groups of men and women, we asked them to discuss this idea of nurturing their marriages and to come up with some suggestions. The men's group came up with 22 suggestions!! The women's group came up with 10 (but lots of brackets).
We stood back and marveled at some of their suggestions. Wow!!!
These very polite and conservative people with strict social norms and boundaries had some great ideas.
Some examples:
undress your wife
take a bath with your wife
bathe your wife
dress your wife
feed your wife
massage your wife with oil
help your wife with her duties
hold her hand
sit with her
talk with her
listen to her
From the women:
go and bring the water so you can prepare a bath for your husband (this would include going to the river, town tap or well and filling a large container and then carrying it on your head back to the home)
prepare his favourite food (this would include starting a fire and cooking on that which would take considerable time)
feed him
sit with him and talk with him
clean the house for him - do this with love, not duty...
and the lists go on.
We knew our students had gotten the idea when they so freely shared these ideas and later for homework we asked them to incorporate one of these actions into their evening......
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